Celebrated American designer/craftsman Wendell Castle (1932 - 2018) was born and educated in Kansas. He earned degrees in Industrial Design and Sculpture at the University of Kansas. Castle moved to Rochester, NY in 1962 to teach woodworking and furniture design at Rochester Institute of Technology in the School for American Craftsmen. In 1987, he became an Artist-in-Residence at RIT. He began working extensively with the Industrial Design program in 2010. He also maintained his own studio in Scottsville, NY.

Castle created unique pieces of handmade sculpture and furniture for over five decades. He consistently challenged the traditional boundaries of functional design from the outset of his career. Castle was instrumental in helping shape the American studio furniture movement throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He is remembered as one of the most important American designers, the "Father of art furniture".